Tjankie High School - both in the Joe Moro-long municipality, with Kalahari High School from Ga-Segonyana municipality taking the third spot.The awards were bestowed for the fourth year and have been fully supported by the Department of Education and the com-munities at large. Addressing learners and the community, the Executive Mayor, Sofia Mosikatsi, said that she was very proud of the achieve-ments of the district since the intervention of the National Department of Education in 2014, when the district experienced a high matric failure rate.The intervention saw the district making a turn-around through the support and intervention by stakeholders such as the JTG Developmental Trust, the Department of Education and the mining houses. The success of a learner is a great pride to any parent and educator. This was evi-dent as learners were accompanied by their parents and teachers to this auspicious academic event.The district scored a 0.9% pass rate improvement of 71.4% from the previous year. The executive mayor motivated stu-dents to study harder and encouraged pa-rents to continue supporting their children in pursuit of academic excellence. The mayor also appealed for cooperation between sector departments and munici-palities as issues revolving around service delivery affect and disrupt learning when schools are burned down and roads closed unnecessarily. She was encouraged and enthused by the Joe Morolong rural schools that contin-ue to churn out exceptional results. Ms Mosikatsi finally said that learners, pa-rents and educators had to work together to come out with such sterling achievements. The principal of Dibotswa High School and the community of Dithakong were jubi-lant for the school and the principal assured the authorities that they will do their best to defend the trophy. He indicated that all accolades ought to go to the previous principal, teachers and learners though, because he had just started with the school in January 2018.Yet again, spirits were high as the John Taolo Gaetsewe district annual mayoral matric awards were award-ed at Dithakong village under the Joe Mo-rolong local municipality on February 16, 2018. The awards ceremony was held to re-cognise the three schools and learners in the district that performed exceptionally well in the 2017 matric examinations. The two schools are Dibotswa High School that came out tops, and Pitso Tjankie High School - both in the Joe Moro-long municipality, with Kalahari High School from Ga-Segonyana municipality taking the third spot.The awards were bestowed for the fourth year and have been fully supported by the Department of Education and the com-munities at large. Addressing learners and the community, the Executive Mayor, Sofia Mosikatsi, said that she was very proud of the achieve-ments of the district since the intervention of the National Department of Education in 2014, when the district experienced a high matric failure rate.The intervention saw the district making a turn-around through the support and intervention by stakeholders such as the JTG Developmental Trust, the Department of Education and the mining houses. The success of a learner is a great pride to any parent and educator. This was evi-dent as learners were accompanied by their parents and teachers to this auspicious academic event.The district scored a 0.9% pass rate improvement of 71.4% from the previous year. The executive mayor motivated stu-dents to study harder and encouraged pa-rents to continue supporting their children in pursuit of academic excellence. The mayor also appealed for cooperation between sector departments and munici-palities as issues revolving around service delivery affect and disrupt learning when schools are burned down and roads closed unnecessarily. She was encouraged and enthused by the Joe Morolong rural schools that contin-ue to churn out exceptional results. Ms Mosikatsi finally said that learners, pa-rents and educators had to work together to come out with such sterling achievements. The principal of Dibotswa High School and the community of Dithakong were jubi-lant for the school and the principal assured the authorities that they will do their best to defend the trophy. He indicated that all accolades ought to go to the previous principal, teachers and learners though, because he had just started with the school in January 2018.

As schools opened on January 17, 2018 in the Northern Cape, authori-ties including the MEC of Education Pauline Williams accompanied by her head of department Tshepo Pharasi, said that educators and learners should not waste time. This statement comes in the wake of an upward trend of matric results obtained in the district. In her candid address to the community, Ms Williams said that the department is mo-nitoring the state of schools in the region, as well as acclimatising with the community. “We are indeed pleased by the upward ma-tric results trend in the John Taolo Gaetse-we region. It goes without saying that the district director and his team are doing a sterling job to ensure that there is some rising consistency in the pass rate. “We applaud the multifaceted approach by different stakeholders to ensure that our score sheet in terms of results in the district remains improving,” she said. Not only did the delegation look at the ac-ademic results, but they were also con-cerned about the state of some schools where the infrastructure looked very old and seemed forgotten by the relevant au-thorities. Responding to the media over some schools which were seemingly a threat in terms of their state of disrepair, Ms Williams was bold enough to state that the monitor-ing and evaluation being undertaken were precisely targeting such schools in the re-gion and the province at large. She said that Bosele Middle School is one such good example that had been prioriti-sed because of its bad state. The paint of the school is peeling off and the building itself is telling another story with the rotten roofing asking whether or not the depart-ment is seeing its advanced age. The resi-dent chief also raised the befitting concern about the school.

The All Africa Student Convention (AASC) is an annual event that is held over a period of one week. High school learners from across Africa (and even Scandinavia) come together to compete in events in a variety of platforms : Academic, art, sport, music, speech & drama and dance. AASC can best be described as a mini Olympics for learners in schools using the ACE system as well as other Christian schools. Plus minus 2000 students attend-ed the AASC.Learners who excel in their events are no-minated to attend the International Student Convention, which is held in the USA once a year. The ISC tour is a life-changing ex-perience and an awesome opportunity for learners.Rehoboth Christian School Kathu partici-pated in the AASC 2017 in Bloemfontein from 02 - 07 October 2017. Here are the results of these learners.1. Creative Praise and Worship Small Group received 6th place : Lize-Mari Coet-zee, Anri Hoffman, Jo-Ann Rabie, Charity Sekhaku and Duard Kotze.2. Creative Praise and Worship Duet 8th place : Jo-Ann Rabie and Lize-Mari Coet-zee.3. Athletics 1600 Run (male) 9th place : Duard Kotze4. PowerPoint Presentation - Linear : Lize-Mari Coetzee 10th place and Charity Sekhakhu 9th place.5. Science Exhibit (Engineering) 2nd place : Lize -Mari Coetzee Both Lize-Mari Coetzee and Charity Sek-hakhu were nominated to represent Reho-both Kathu at the International Student Convention held from 11 - 28 May 2018 in the USA. Well done to these learners.